


The Importance of Names

by Ruusverd



Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [31]
Category: Echoes of the Fall - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26321746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruusverd/pseuds/Ruusverd
Summary: Ciri tries to learn the Tiger's dance, Geralt and Milva are not as sneaky as they think they are, Ciri asks questions about names, and it somehow results in Geralt being officially declared chief of the tribe.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863010
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	The Importance of Names

“Your right foot is too far forwards again.”

Ciri growled and moved her foot back into place. She’d asked the Tigress, who had given her name as Aripey, to teach her how the Tigers fought, but she hadn’t thought learning would be like _this._ She’d been training to fight for years, but Wolf fighting mainly relied on experience, knowing the best places to bite and the best places to strike with a weapon, and biting and striking at them whenever the opponent left an opening while trying not to be bitten or struck in return.

The Tiger’s training seemed to involve repeating the same moves over and over by rote, then putting them together into a polished sequence. Ciri felt silly thrusting and slashing at nothing, not even a dummy opponent, but Aripey had demonstrated the sequence she was trying to teach Ciri, and it certainly looked deadly enough when _she_ did it, even without an opponent.

“Does it really matter where my foot is? My knife’s in the right place, isn’t it?” she asked sulkily.

“It won’t matter where your knife is if you’re too off-balance to use it or you get knocked over by a stiff breeze. I said you were too old to start learning,” Aripey said. “If you want to stop I wouldn’t complain.”

“Our Ciri never gives up on something she wants,” Milva said. “There’s no use in trying to discourage her.” The Hawk lazily fired another arrow at a target on the far side of the training ground, hitting the center without apparent effort. She looked bored, and Ciri suspected she was only there at Geralt’s request so he could discretely keep an eye on Ciri and the Tigress.

Geralt sat cross-legged on the ground not far from her, keeping Little Hawk entertained and out of the way with the collection of carved wooden toys that seemed to multiply with every long, boring winter. Aripey had firmly told the Wolves that even Tiger men weren’t allowed to learn this dance and therefore none of them were welcome to attend her lessons with Ciri, but she couldn’t very well order Geralt off the training ground if he was minding Milva’s son while the archer practiced.

Ciri started the sequence from the beginning, wondering idly when Milva was going to give her son a real name, and how hard it would be to think of him as anything but Little Hawk. Milva and Jaskier had both said Eyrie children didn’t get real names for a few years because the death rate was so high for infants and very young children, but Little Hawk was going to be four this winter and had always been perfectly healthy, surely he was old enough? Thinking of Little Hawk’s name led her to thinking about her own, about when she might get her hunter’s name, and what she might do to earn it.

She was pulled from her daydreams of valor when Aripey stopped her in the middle of the sequence.

 _“Shift_ your weight from one foot to the other, don’t hop back and forth like you stepped on a wasp,” the Tigress said in exasperation.

Ciri made a face and started over, now wondering about her new teacher’s name. She’d introduced herself only as “Aripey” and hadn’t given them a hunter’s name. That was odd for a woman from the Crown of the World, where birth names were reserved for use by family and close friends. Aripey was old enough to have grown children, surely she had a hunter’s name?

“What’s your hunter’s name? Do you have one?” she asked, before realizing it might be a rude question, particularly if Aripey _didn’t_ have one at her age.

“I have one,” Aripey said shortly, “but it isn’t for common use.” She gave Geralt a disparaging glance. “Wolves have no sense about names. What is a birth name? Nothing but a sound that your mother found pleasing. Why should that be a secret? The name you earn describes who you _are,_ that’s the name that should be protected.”

Geralt looked up at her, raising one eyebrow. “Maybe some of us would put more value on a sound given to us by our mothers,” he said with surprising bitterness, then shook his head. “The hunter’s name is only a description, something noteworthy about your appearance, or a reminder of your deeds. The birth name belongs to your _self,_ the person you are before your deeds, or your appearance, or even your soul.”

“The Eyrie thinks the same as the Wolf,” Milva said, shooting and hitting the center again. “And every other clan of the north I know of. The Tiger is the odd one out on naming, at least in the Crown of the World.”

Ciri frowned, stopping her practice since no one was paying attention anymore. Only the Crown of the World had hunter’s names. On the Plains everyone had only one name, and in the south names were inherited, with a system of suffixes to denote if you were the youngest, middle, or eldest of your name. Yennefer had three names, but she seldom used the last two and Ciri wasn't sure what they meant. With so many different naming traditions in one place, Ciri had never thought about the fact that Milva had no hunter’s name, and that as a northern woman she should. “Why doesn’t Milva have a hunter’s name?”

Milva flinched and her last shot landed a hand-span away from the others. With a huff she went to retrieve her arrows.

Geralt looked at Ciri reprovingly. “The Eyrie doesn’t give women hunter’s names, because the women typically aren’t allowed to do anything that might earn them one,” he said quietly.

“But she’s not part of the Eyrie anymore, she’s one of _us!_ Why haven’t _we_ given her a hunter’s name?”

Geralt looked surprised. “We’re not— Only someone from a person's own tribe can give them their hunter’s name, and we’re just a warband.”

“A warband that doesn’t do battle unless attacked,” Aripey said dryly. “And lives together in a village where they share the work and raise their children together. Whether you admit it or not, you are a tribe. I would not have come so far through such danger to join a mere warband.”

Ciri laughed at the stunned expression on Geralt’s face. The Wolf shook his head, his expression morphing into determination. “You are right, both of you.” He stood, gathering up Little Hawk and making sure he had all his toys. “Excuse me, it seems I have a meeting to arrange for tonight. We’ve been neglecting a few responsibilities for far too long.”

Milva came back from the target with her arrows, aiming a confused look at Geralt’s retreating back. “I suppose I’m done practicing for the day,” she said, nodding at Ciri and Aripey and following Geralt back towards the center of the village.

“I used to think the Tiger was uniquely gifted at stealth and subtlety,” Aripey said conversationally, “but now I begin to think it is simply that the other totems of the north have none at all.”

Ciri thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “These things are known,” she said in her best imitation of Yennefer’s solemn tone, “They are not subtle.”

* * *

There was much discussion that night about the matter of Milva’s hunter’s name. Jaskier had initially insisted that since hunter’s names were a northern custom only the northerners should have a say, but since that left only Geralt, Ciri, and Jaskier himself to decide Milva’s name he was quickly outvoted. Then they became embroiled in a heated debate as to the exact moment they had gone from “warband” to “tribe” without noticing, and whether deeds done before that nebulous point could be considered for naming purposes.

Milva sat silently, watching the others debating the matter with a stunned expression. Finally she spoke up, interrupting Cahir and Jaskier arguing about whether fighting the Dragons on the river or the Crocodiles at the Stone Place was the greater show of prowess, while Lem insisted that _her_ favorite memory of Milva was when she had attacked both Geralt and Cahir at once when they’d fought just before reaching the Crown of the World.

“Freedom-in-Flight,” Milva said, then looked embarrassed. “I know it isn’t customary, to choose your own name, but that’s what I want to be called."

“Then Freedom-in-Flight it is,” Geralt said solemnly, and they all toasted Milva's new name.

“Well that’s settled, then,” Cahir said, cutting off Lem’s insincere complaints that her suggestion ‘Strikes-At-Brawling-Fools” hadn’t even been properly considered.

“Not quite,” Regis said. “If we’re to be a tribe, there’s another name we must decide on. A warband may know itself only as ‘us’ or ‘our warband,’ but a proper tribe must have a proper name for itself.”

“This is the Elder Sea village, why not just take the name of the Elder Sea tribe?” Cahir suggested. “The name of a place doesn’t change just because different people are living in it.”

“No,” all the Wolves insisted in chorus. Geralt’s brothers hadn’t joined the discussion of Milva’s name due to not being official members of the group, but in this they had a say.

“Maybe that’s how things are done in the south,” Coen added, “but that’s not how they’re done here. You’re living in the village that once housed the Elder Sea tribe, but you’re not them. You don’t get to use that name.”

“New Waters Flowing From the Elder Sea!” Jaskier suggested dramatically, gesturing grandly.

“That’s too long,” Lem said. “No one’s going to want to say all that every time.”

“New Waters by itself isn’t bad, though.” Regis said thoughtfully, “’We are in new waters’ is a saying used when one is faced with a foreign or unfamiliar situation, is it not? And we are certainly in rather new territory with this grand experiment of ours.”

“All who agree with the name New Waters say so,” Yennefer said, to a chorus of agreement. “Then the New Waters tribe it is.”

“I nominate Geralt to be chief,” Milva said. “A real tribe has to have a real chief, and he’s always been our leader.”

“I’m not the chief!” he protested. “How could I be chief when none of you ever do what I say?”

“You did technically challenge Vesemir, and as I recall you won,” Eskel pointed out. “Generally that makes you the chief.”

“That shouldn’t count, he was out of his mind and anyway he was the chief of the Elder Sea, not the New Waters,” Geralt insisted.

“Who else would be chief, if not you?” Regis asked mildly.

“Me!” Lem volunteered.

“I agree, Lem should be chief,” Cahir said, then laughed when Lem looked horrified for a moment before she realized he was joking. She punched him in the shoulder and might have started a wresting match on the floor if Milva hadn’t reached out and pulled her back.

“All who agree that Geralt should be chief say so,” Yennefer called for another vote, and got another enthusiastic chorus of agreement from everyone except Geralt.

“I hope you realize you just proved my point,” he said dryly. “No one listens to me even when I say I can’t be chief because no one ever listens to me.”

“We do listen to you, dearest,” Yennefer said consolingly, lacing her fingers through his and leaning against his shoulder, “just not when you’re being foolish.”

“I think you’re all pushing the job off on me because none of you want to do it yourselves.”

“That, too,” Yennefer laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> Did I name my oc by smashing together two canon names? Yes. Do I feel bad about it? Not really, there are only like 3 or 4 actual Tigress names mentioned so it's hard to establish a pattern for what they should sound like. I do sort of regret that I now ship it though, lol.


End file.
